


The Price

by Damkianna



Category: Psmith - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Caretaking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Extra Treat, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kidnapping, Kissing, M/M, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25510420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damkianna/pseuds/Damkianna
Summary: Psmith gets in trouble. Mike gets him out of it.It doesn't take very long for Psmith to figure out what it cost him to do it.
Relationships: Mike Jackson/Rupert Psmith
Comments: 9
Kudos: 24
Collections: Rare Male Slash Exchange 2020





	The Price

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aurilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/gifts).



> This isn't so much whump as it is unbelievably self-indulgent aftermath of offscreen whump, aurilly—but I hope very much that you enjoy it, and happy RMSE! ♥
> 
> This is set somewhere during _Psmith, Journalist_ , for the sake of convenient gangsters and whump facilitation; it is a porn logic AU without any porn, except perhaps of the emotional variety. Rape/non-con/assault is implied to have been committed, and is discussed in extremely vague terms, but that's it.

There could be no escape.

Psmith had examined the matter from every angle possible, and a few that were not, and had found to his consternation that he faced the same inexorable conclusion every time. It was a comfortable position neither literally nor metaphorically; but there was no choice except to steel his nerve to withstand it.

He was bound, and firmly so. Worse still, his bonds were multiple. Even should he by some chance locate a tool or edge against which to saw them, he could not hope to cut through all of them at once. The men who held him surely would not leave him here unsupervised for anywhere near the time it would take to do it.

And that assessment was entirely hypothetical in any case, and presumed facts not in evidence. He had been able to locate no such tool, no such edge. The back room in which he had been enclosed was dusty, somewhat cramped, but quite bare. The floor was formed of rough concrete; no nails thrust themselves conveniently free of the corrugated metal walls, which did not even have the decency to be dented, bent, or otherwise damaged.

Even if he had been blessed by luck, and had had sufficient time in which to work, he could admit, clear-eyed, that he might yet have floundered, run aground upon the unenviable truth of his physical predicament. His hands were behind him. His wrists had been bound not only to each other, but to the bonds that similarly imprisoned his ankles—thus, he now lay on his side, knees bent sharply, his range of movement severely curtailed. His leverage could not be other than poor, and his arms already threatened numbness at any moment with petty tingling preludes in a minor key.

If there were a silver lining, he supposed, it was that his distinct lack of options had meant it had not yet proven necessary for him to attempt to nudge his way along the grimy floor. His trousers must already be positively filthy with dust, and he shuddered to think what such bold action might do to his suit jacket.

His shirt and waistcoat had already suffered at the whim of callous Fate. He had emerged from all the day's adventures upon the rooftops victorious and unscathed, only to find himself set upon by superior numbers and with decided force when he had departed the offices of Cosy Moments for the evening. He had been struck repeatedly and ungently, in an effort to prevent him from making his objections known. His collar and shirtfront were sticky and stiff where he had proven regrettably unable to keep from bleeding on them.

He could not begin to guess where his eye-glass might have gone.

He had recognized none of the men who had taken him; he inferred that they had no quarrel with him personally, but had learned that others did, and sought to profit by turning him over to the same. He understood that if they succeeded, it would not—could not—end well for him, and that he had no means by which to prevent that success. It was only a matter of time.

He lay there in the dimness, head pounding, mouth throbbing, shoulders and thighs strained and aching, arms jabbed deep with pins and needles. He regretted nothing. He could not have acted other than as he had. And yet he found himself thinking with a strange grim feeling not unlike grief: who would tell Mike? How would it happen? Would Billy Windsor be informed as to his fate, in the hope that the lesson would be taken to heart, and pass the news along as gently as it could be done? Or would Mike return to New York after some thrilling sequence of cricket matches, blithe and hale, and discover their Fourth Avenue flat with bills unpaid, re-let to strangers?

He would not leave New York without learning what had happened to Psmith, Psmith knew. He would not simply shrug his shoulders and gallivant back across the Atlantic with the M.C.C. It should not have been pleasing to imagine that he might uncover the business in full, that he might take up Psmith's banner in memoriam—that at some future date it might be Mike who lay here bound was not a thought Psmith was inclined to entertain happily. Indeed, his gut clenched sickeningly at the idea. And yet there was a strange, greedy, bittersweet appeal in the prospect of being remembered with such focused and unwavering dedication: of being mourned, being _missed_ , to so profound a degree by Mike.

Psmith bit down on the inside of his cheek, and endeavored to turn his thoughts elsewhere. He was not typically inclined to such pointless mawkishness. He had been lately struck in the head; he could not be held to account for it; but all the same he felt aware that he had better not let himself carry on in such a way. He tried never to ask more of Mike than was wise, even in his own mind.

The door rattled. Psmith tensed where he lay and then regretted it, as his body protested fervently.

He had been right, he thought. A matter of time.

Except the figure that stood in the doorway then, looking down at him, was not one of the gangsters who had brought him here, nor any of the men he might have recognized from the siege of the rooftop. It was not even Mr. Francis Parker, as Psmith had begun to anticipate it might be.

It was Mike.

Psmith blinked up at him, absorbing the unexpected and unlooked-for gift of that familiar face, of every line and angle of him, and was filled with a feeling too luminous to be called relief, mounting rapidly to an acuteness only just short of pain. His eyes grew hot, and stung. He closed them, and mastered himself. "Comrade Jackson, you are truly a wonder," he said. "Of all the times when your absence should be most excusable, if also most sorely felt—nevertheless, you appear. You are steadfast beyond the wildest dreams of men; you defy all odds." He paused. "In point of fact, I find myself rather at a loss to explain it. Your return to this fair metropolis was not expected for some time yet, as I understood it. And you have proven yourself a man of action, given the opportunity, but to handle so many at once—"

He stopped short.

Mike had gone tense above him. The door, in swinging open, had admitted not only Mike but a flood of light; Psmith, with the ease of long practice, had nevertheless been able to pick out the fundamentals of Mike's features. But now his eyes adjusted properly. He saw what did indeed appear to be evidence of some physical altercation: Mike held himself strangely, stiffly. His clothes were visibly disarrayed, his jacket gone; his hair went every which way; his face was red, with marks that would shortly bloom into bruises along his jaw, his cheek—his mouth.

And yet he did not look like a man who had faced a mob of a dozen with fists alone. Such had been the number of Psmith's opponents, earlier that evening. Mike was swift, undoubtedly, and fit. But surely he could not have subdued them all so readily.

His lip had been split in two places, Psmith observed, and bled sluggishly even now.

His knuckles, however, were whole.

"Comrade Jackson," said Psmith slowly.

"All right?" said Mike.

His voice was hoarse. He flinched visibly from the sound of it, and swallowed, and dropped down beside Psmith. He reached with gratifying haste and an expression of profound distress for the ropes that bound Psmith in place, and paused for a telling moment to touch two fingertips to the dark dried blood that streaked Psmith's shirt.

But he would not meet Psmith's eyes.

"As well as can be expected," said Psmith, without looking away. "A moment to remind my limbs of their proper position and function, and I shall be equal to any number of daring avenues of escape."

"No need," said Mike, as he worked apart the last knot that had held Psmith's wrists. He helped Psmith sit, and rubbed his stiff arms until they had warmed and loosened a little, and would once again heed Psmith; and all the while he gazed down, or away, and beneath Psmith's unwavering stare a dark flush began to climb steadily up his throat.

"No need," repeated Psmith.

"They'll let us go," said Mike.

He did not explain this extraordinary pronouncement, but instead fell silent. He had assisted Psmith in straightening his aching knees, and now turned to the task of freeing Psmith's ankles. Psmith's shoes had been taken, an admittedly sound precaution against his achieving much distance if he had escaped; Mike produced them without a word, and waited with his face averted until Psmith attempted to stand. Then and only then, he reached for Psmith, took Psmith's elbow and steadied him until he proved capable of resisting gravity's temptations independently.

"Come on," said Mike, and drew Psmith through the door.

The warehouse they were within was long, narrow. Half had been divided into rooms and offices, similar to the one in which Psmith had been enclosed. The rest was open space. The walls were stacked with crates and packing boxes, but a lane had been left deliberately clear down the middle, more than wide enough for two men abreast to pass. Psmith and Mike did so.

There was a metal door at the front, currently half-open, which raised and lowered by means of chains and pulleys. Psmith possessed a dim memory of having been brought here by an automobile, of lying within it swallowing down blood and listening to what had seemed then like a very distant clattering.

Before it, crates had been pushed aside; nearly the full width of the warehouse was clear. There were indeed several automobiles parked within it.

And there were also chairs, a table, and a dozen men Psmith would rather not have recognized, but did.

One of them looked up. His gaze passed over Psmith with a sneer, and reached Mike, and his face was transformed: a lazy smile stretched his mouth, and his eyes went dark and heavy-lidded. The man beside him whistled, long and low and mocking.

Mike did not falter. But he removed his hand from Psmith's arm immediately. Psmith could not see his face, but the nape of his neck was red.

"Jackson," said Psmith quietly. He could not quite bring himself to commit to the habitual _Comrade_ , not in front of such an audience; it felt abruptly as though it would have exposed Mike somehow before them, in a way Psmith was disinclined to do.

"Come on," said Mike, the words rough and bitten-out.

Psmith obeyed.

This particular crowd of hooligans had struck him upon first acquaintance as ill-tempered. They had been cross with his strenuous resistance to their plans for him, if pleased to have tracked him down. But as he and Mike navigated the space they occupied, Psmith discerned that the atmosphere had changed. They sprawled comfortably, relaxed. Sated. Their eyes followed not Psmith, though they had gone to more than a bit of trouble on his account, but Mike—and did so with an oppressively intent weight Psmith began promptly to despise.

However, it was clear Mike had not been mistaken in his understanding of the situation, nor in his instructions to Psmith. Not one man moved to prevent their exit.

Psmith recognized the ring-leader as the last of them, standing closest to the half-open door, leaning back against the wall beside it at a distinctly louche angle. He, too, regarded Mike with a sly slant to his mouth that suggested both gratification and amusement, an expression of thoroughly abhorrent benificence.

"Pleasure doing business with you, Jackson," he murmured. "Why, you come back again and visit us anytime you like."

The men who were nearest heard, and laughed.

Mike did not. He had been flushed before; but he was pale now, as the ring-leader clapped him amiably upon the shoulder, and then flicked the corner of Mike's crumpled shirt-collar idly with his thumb.

"We're done," said Mike, very steadily.

"Oh, sure, sure," said the ring-leader. He still had not released Mike's shoulder. "Probably not worth crossin' Groome Street anyway, is it? Deal's a deal."

And then he smiled wider still, and reached up, and touched Mike's cheek. Patted it with three fingers, generating a soft smacking sound, and then dug his thumb for a moment into the reddened, injured line of Mike's lip.

It was disturbing, bizarre; wildly overfamiliar.

Mike did not move. But Psmith saw his hands were shaking.

"Go on, then," said the ring-leader, disorientingly affable, and let go.

Even Psmith needed only hunch a little to duck beneath the half-open warehouse door. Mike followed within a moment. The street outside was dark and still, the night air fresh.

But Psmith could feel nothing except a creeping cold stealing over him, robbing him of breath. His chest was tight; his throat ached; all his own hurts and complaints were gone, swallowed utterly by dread.

"Comrade Jackson," he heard himself say.

"We'd better go," said Mike, and walked away.

He did not rush. His steps were measured. But his shoulders were high and tense beneath his rumpled shirt, and all his efforts could not conceal a stilted, too-eloquent limp.

They engaged a taximeter-cab to convey them to Fourth Avenue.

Psmith had been able to scrub most of the remaining blood off his face, and had closed up his jacket over the worst of what stained his shirt and waistcoat. He was not presentable, but he approached some facsimile thereof. They could not hope to hide the minor injuries that marked their faces; but the cab's driver barely looked at them. Psmith suspected perhaps he had learned not to balk too openly, nor to ask too many questions, of prospective passengers who flagged him down in this particular borough.

Mike had not been stripped of his valuables, nor his money. Under other circumstances, Psmith would have been grateful; in the moment, it was faint and flickering hope extinguished, evidence of a price Mike had not been made to pay that suggested with greater and more terrible clarity the one he had.

Psmith could not watch the awkward agony with which Mike had to settle himself into his seat. He could not bear to, knowing there was no comfort he could offer in that moment that Mike would accept but to pretend he had not noticed.

The drive was not long, but felt as though it were, conducted in stifling silence. Psmith closed his eyes, and determinedly presented a front of undisturbed unawareness, supporting his head in a manner that suggested that the blows it had taken were foremost in occupying his thoughts.

The streets were not uniformly even. Mike made choked, desperately-swallowed sounds at every lurch and bump of the cab. Psmith endeavored distantly not to be sick.

It was a relief, in a dim and far-off way, to reach their shared flat at last. When Psmith tried, he could recall how gladly he'd looked forward to the day when Mike and the team should return to New York, and he might once again enjoy the pleasure of Mike's company here; to occupy a flat for two alone was a taxing business. There was, perhaps, more than one reason Psmith had chosen to pursue an active role in the administration of _Cosy Moments_ —not only to fill his time in Mike's absence, but simply to give himself somewhere to be that was not a flat that did not have Mike in it. This unexpected change in circumstances should have been a boon.

But he could summon no cheer. If anything, he found he wished fervently that Mike had been occupied another month at least, facing every American cricketer from Florida to California, and had not spared a single thought for Psmith.

Mike had walked into the flat, and then had ground to a halt, as if that were as far as momentum and willpower could carry him. He had an arm about himself, held in an absent manner that suggested he was not aware of it. A fine-grained tremble had set into his limbs; his gaze leapt and would not settle.

"Well," he said, in an uncertain, scraping tone that hurt to hear. "I'll ... I'll turn in, then." He essayed half a smile, thin and wavering, and evidently directed to the wall to Psmith's right more than to Psmith. "You've got yourself in a fine mess, haven't you? Tell us all about it in the morning."

"Mike," said Psmith, very quietly.

Mike fell silent.

"Please," he added.

That, at last, drew Mike's eyes to him. Mike looked startled, and then stomach-turningly apprehensive, as though he dreaded to imagine what might be required of him next.

Psmith cleared his throat. "I shall draw you a bath," he said.

It felt officious at best, and clumsy at worst. The eloquence that usually served him so effortlessly had abandoned him; he could not work out another way to say it, another way to make it clear that he refused absolutely and unconditionally to leave Mike to clean himself up alone.

He would not speak of it. He would not name it. Not if Mike did not want him to. But it felt desperately important that Mike should understand that Psmith could not be made to ignore him when he was in pain—that the very idea was intolerable.

Mike looked at Psmith for a time and did not speak. And then he swallowed, and closed his eyes, and the tight hard line of his shoulders eased.

"All right," he said softly.

The bath was fine, and large. Psmith could hardly have consented to let the Fourth Avenue flat without one.

It took a long time to fill. Psmith seized the opportunity to shed his dusty jacket, replace his trousers, and change at last out of his bloodstained shirt and waistcoat. In truth, he had almost forgotten them entirely; but it was calming, soothing, to restore at least this much order to his existence. It cleared his head, and his muddled brain began to feel as though it might someday creak into motion again.

There was hardly any blood left on his face. He washed away what traces remained with care, cleaned his torn lip and felt absently along the line of his nose. Not broken, he decided, and therefore in no need of immediate attention.

He stood, hands and face wet, and gazed down into the sink.

The foundations of friendship between Psmith and Mike had been laid years ago, and had not shifted since. Their manner in relation to each other had taken on a recognizable and persistent shape. Psmith issued declarations, expressed whims, pursued the courses of action which caught his fancy. And in all cases, Mike obliged him, with characteristic patience and steady good humor.

Psmith did not underestimate the value of Mike's willingness to indulge him. Quite the contrary; he treasured it dearly, with an intensity that had only increased as his regard for Mike had implacably deepened. And he took proportional care not to abuse it. A perennial truth: he tried never to ask more of Mike than was wise, lest Mike, eternally generous Mike, should give it to him. Or—worse still, or preferable? He had never been able to judge the case with clarity—lest he should at last find himself unequivocally refused.

Now a stranger had made a greater and more terrible demand of Mike than Psmith would ever have dreamed, and on Psmith's behalf; and Mike had _done_ it. It was unthinkable, insupportable. Psmith felt racked by crushing and relentless emotion—his heart no longer seemed to fit within his chest—he could not breathe. His hands shook.

Mike. He must help Mike. He must be of some good, however pitifully little it might be, to Mike. That was what mattered now.

The tub was full, steaming gently, and had frothed over lightly with bubbles by the time Mike came in; Psmith was kneeling calmly beside it, face dry.

Mike was still mostly dressed, and he looked pale and unsure. "Psmith," he said hesitantly. "You needn't—"

"It is borne in upon me that a rhetorical strategy of which you've proven fond in the past is appropriate here. 'Chuck it'," advised Psmith, and stood.

He helped Mike remove his shirt, and then took it and turned without apparent ulterior motive toward the counter, smoothed it out and folded it carefully with close attention, and turned back only when he had heard the muted splash of bathwater. He did not subject Mike to particular scrutiny; he sensed readily that it would not prove welcome. He only reached out and touched Mike's shoulder with a steadying hand.

Mike gripped his arm and swallowed hard, and looked away, and though he went dully red he did not stop Psmith from helping him to lower himself into the tub.

When it was done, Psmith collected the rest of his things, folded his trousers neatly, and then returned. Mike sat with his eyes shut, his arms close about himself, his head tipped back tiredly against the rim of the bath; he was half-curled, his weight clearly angled to settle on one hip in an instinctive effort to minimize pain.

Psmith picked up a flannel, and set a careful hand at the nape of Mike's neck.

Mike shuddered beneath it, and bit his lip so that it began to bleed again.

Psmith made a soft, deliberately unremarkable chiding sound, and touched the flannel to Mike's lip until the wound was quelled again. Then he folded over the bloodied corner and wetted the rest, and washed Mike's face.

He was gentle rather than thorough. His aim, it must be admitted, was not so much cleanliness as accounting. Mike had been made to suffer the acquisition of each mark that had been left on him; to bear witness and acknowledge each in turn, if silently, seemed the least Psmith could do. The passage of even a little time had deepened the bruising along Mike's cheek and jaw, what had been reddened skin now blooming blue-violet. The pattern was recognizably suggestive of the grasp of an uncaring hand.

Or several.

Psmith squeezed warm water into Mike's hair, and smoothed his fingers through it. The angles of Mike's neck and back, the set of his jaw, eased by degrees. Psmith felt abruptly gripped by a swell of raw emotion he did not dare to name. His throat ached. Words clawed their way into his mouth, unbidden.

"God, I wish you hadn't done it."

Mike went tense under his hands.

"Done what?"

Psmith almost smiled. "You merit greater praise than I can give and possess too many talents to name, Comrade Jackson," he murmured, "but prevarication is not among them." He stopped. "You needn't speak of it. I should have said as much. But please don't ask me to pretend ignorance I don't possess." _Please don't make me stop. Please don't send me away._

Mike was silent for a moment.

"They didn't all have a real go at me," he said at last, quietly. "Only ... only Collins."

This, Psmith inferred immediately, was the name of the ring-leader who had been waiting for them by the door.

"He was the only one who," said Mike, and then he stopped. "He'd organized it all. He had them track you down. He'd been looking forward to—to getting some use out of you, he said. Compensation for his time and effort, and all the trouble you'd given them."

Psmith wished distantly that he had gone down at the first blow to the face, and allowed himself to be stashed away without an instant's protest.

"He was owed extra. He said as long as I did well enough, the rest of them would be satisfied with ..." Mike cleared his throat, and damped his injured lip absently with his tongue; Psmith understood in a sickening lurch that this was reflex in the face of extreme discomfort, but all too easily doubled as an unspoken conclusion to the sentence. "So it wasn't very bad, really. I'm all right."

He paused again; his head turned beneath Psmith's hand. He met Psmith's eyes. His own were red, and a little wet, and Psmith experienced a wrenching surge of ungovernable emotion at seeing them so.

"It wasn't anything at all," added Mike hoarsely, "next to what I would've done. You wish I hadn't, you're sorry I did—all right. But I'm not." He looked away again. His eyes fell shut. "I didn't tell you we were coming in because I wanted to surprise you. But I couldn't find you, not anywhere. I went looking, and then that Maloney lad said they'd taken you. I didn't think there was any way I could get you out, but I couldn't not try. And then there _was_ a way. There was a way, and it was something I could do, and I did it. I'm not sorry at all.

"I'd do anything for you. I'd do anything you asked, and gladly." The line of Mike's mouth twisted a little, trembling, resigned. "But I suppose you know that. I suppose that's why you never ask."

The effect of these words on Psmith was not unlike that which might have been expected had he been struck without warning. He braced himself, too late; he was jarred to his bones. He made no sound. A wordless, mindless urge for action seized him, a need to respond in kind to demonstrate that he could not be made to bear such an extraordinary assault and turn the other cheek.

The blow had not been physical. It did not matter. Words had always served Psmith readily, and well—and yet here he perceived they were not equal to the task before him.

He bent, helpless, driven, and pressed his mouth to Mike's brow.

Mike's breath hitched in his throat. He did not move away; he sat and allowed it, and the water was still steaming round him but he shivered under Psmith's touch.

There was a particularly dark bruise just at the hinge of his jaw, Psmith knew, where inconsiderate fingers had sought greedily to force his mouth open. Psmith did not need to look for it. He leaned closer still, nose brushing the line of Mike's cheek, and kissed that, too.

Mike made a soft uncertain sound, reached back blindly with a dripping hand, and Psmith caught it in his own and held it tightly.

"If I'd known," said Psmith quietly, "I'd never have let them. I'd have done anything they liked to all of them, twice—"

"Glad you didn't know till it was done, then," said Mike.

It was impossible, Psmith thought, to do anything with that but kiss him again.

He still had a hand in Mike's hair; he moved it, touched Mike's nape and then the side of his throat, his chin, and used it to turn Mike's face toward him. Mike's mouth was still red and tender, ill-used, split darkly, and Psmith touched it gently, kissed it as lightly as he was able when he remained racked yet by the most desperately uncontrolled sentiment.

Mike let him.

Mike let him—Mike reached for him, turned with a slosh of water and caught him by the shoulders, and Psmith kissed him again and again, suspended half over the bath, feeling strange and frantic, utterly unhinged.

He made himself slow, and stop. He could not let go of Mike's face; that was far too much to ask.

Mike blinked at him, looking a bit dazed.

"I'm getting your shirt wet," he said. "And your waistcoat."

"Hang my waistcoat," said Psmith, and kissed him again; and this time, shyly, wonderingly, Mike kissed him back.


End file.
